2011 NY Amp Show: The Situation Rooms

Fair or not, New Jersey is the butt of 90 percent of the jokes made
about the eastern US—from jabs at the oft-unintelligible accent we
associate with its residents to cracks about the stomach-turning inanity of
MTV’s Jersey Shore and its frighteningly clueless subjects, and references to
the Mob and the number of corpses floating in the Hudson River. Which
is probably why the organizers of the NY Amp Show fudge the facts a bit
and name it after the nearby city whose image has a lot more going for it.

Monikers aside, the Piscataway, New Jersey, gathering has something
pretty cool to offer guitar-gear junkies. Held June 4th and 5th in a bunch
of rooms on the first and second floors of the Embassy Suites hotel on
Centennial Avenue, the NY Amp Show brings together some of the most
notable boutique-amp builders in the business, in addition to several up-and-coming amp designers and even a few representatives from big-name
companies. You’ll even find a few effects outfits and guitar and bass luthiers
renting out rooms for the show in a smart attempt to offer attendees a
respite from all the blaring combos and half-stacks.

This year, traffic at the amp fest was more subdued than in past years,
but that didn’t make the wares any less compelling. Smaller, low-wattage
heads and combos that are easy to transport continued to be a popular
platform, but there were also plenty of more powerful heads and cabs of
varying configurations, in addition to the occasional 3x10 combo.

Here we highlight some of the most eye- and ear-grabbing products
from the only “situation” in Jersey that a gear aficionado should consider
wasting his or her time on. Oh, and be sure to check out our stash of video
demos from the show.

Fractal Audio’s new Axe-Fx II has twice the processing power of the previous
version. Its dual processors enabled the Fractal team to start from square one
with new amp models that feature an unprecedented level of granularity. It
also features all-new USB recording capabilities and new low-noise 1/4" inputs and
outputs. fractalaudio.com

As one of the planet’s premier
speaker suppliers, Celestion
(celestion.com) is one of the
regular amp show exhibitors that has to sit
back patiently and hope you remember that
its products, though hidden inside cabinets,
are integral to the stellar tones you’re hearing
from their enviable collection of demo
amps. One of the most newsworthy of
these amps was the new Komet Songwriter
30. Based on the very last Trainwreck amp
design from the legendary Ken Fischer, it
features four cathode-biased EL84s and a
solid-state rectifier, and was designed by
Fischer to sound amazing with current-production
parts rather than new-old-stock.
kometamps.com

Long a favorite
supplier of cabs
for the budget-conscious
tone connoisseur,
Avatar wasn’t officially
displaying its new 18-watt,
handwired EL84 head at
the show, but their pals
at Celestion brought one
along as a favor. We dug
its old-school British tones
through a 2x12 loaded
with George Lynch’s new
signature Lynchback speakers.
avatarspeakers.com

As Premier Guitar chief content officer since January 2010, Shawn Hammond oversees all of PG’s articles, videos, audio, and social media offerings. Although he’s probably as loathe to admit his alma mater as they are to claim him, Shawn has a degree in journalism from Brigham Young University, and a long history in guitar journalism predating his tenure at PG. He’s an avowed Tele, Bigsby, and baritone fanatic, and as his Tuning Up columns regularly reveal, he’s kind of a cantankerous bastard who tends to flip the bird at convention.

Chris has degrees in Journalism and History from the University of Iowa and has been with PG dating back to his days as an intern in 2007. Since then, he's become Associate Editor and done almost everything—including overseeing web content/article creation, video shooting/editing, and writing artist features and music reviews. He spends his free time with his pitbull Doozy, collecting tattoos, and trying his hand at being a hipster by gathering vinyl anywhere he can find it. He's one of the lone sports nuts on staff and cheers on the Cubs, Cowboys, and Michigan Wolverines. Oh yeah, he of course enjoys making noise on the guitar. Follow Chris on Twitter.

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